The First "Rag Baby."
The earliest Presidential election which falls within the scope of the present chapter, that of 1872, antedates the establishment of American comic weeklies. The central figure in the few caricatures which have survived from that year was, of course, Horace Greeley, whose candidacy at one time was thought seriously to threaten the fortunes of the Republican Party. The caricatures themselves, with the exception of those drawn by Thomas Nast, show little improvement over the caricatures which were executed during the Civil War. The artists relied entirely upon the traditional loops to make them intelligible to the public, and the features of the political characters portrayed were expressionless and wooden. One of the best of this series was drawn in support of the Horace Greeley candidacy. Uncle Sam is represented as a landlord and President Grant as his tenant, a shiftless widow with a dog at her heels and a bottle of rum in the basket on her arm. The Widow Grant has come to ask for a new lease. "Well, Uncle Sam," she says, "I've called to see if you will let me have the White House for four years longer, as I find the place suits me very well." "No, Marm Grant," retorts Uncle Sam, shaking his head, "I reckon I'll do no such thing. I've had too many complaints about you from the neighbors during the last four years. I'm just sick of you and your tobacco smoke and bull pups, so I've given the lease to Honest Horace Greeley, who will take better care of the place than you have."
The Donkey. First used to ridicule the Inflation Tendency.
In another of this series Horace Greeley is represented as the entering wedge that is splitting the rock of the Republican Party. Greeley, with a paper hearing the words "Free Trade" in one hand and one bearing "Protection" in the other, is being hammered into the cleft in the Republican rock by a huge mallet—Democratic Nomination—wielded by Carl Schurz. "This is rather a novel position for a stanch old Republican like me," he says. "I begin to feel as if I was in a tight place." President Grant, with a cigar in his hand, is looking on complacently. "My friend," he calls out to Schurz, "you've got a soft thing on your wedge, but your mallet will kill the man." To which Schurz replies: "I don't care who's killed, if we succeed in defeating your election." Below, creeping furtively about the rock, are the figures of Dana, Sumner, Gratz Brown, Trumbull, Hall, Sweeny, Tweed, and Hoffman of the Ring. "Anything to beat Grant!" is the cry of these conspirators. "Honesty is the word to shout, there are so many rogues about," mutters Tweed. "Oh, how freely we'll win with Greeley," says Hall. "Anything to beat Grant. He wouldn't make me Collector for New York," are the words of Dana. The cartoon is a belated specimen of the school of American caricature which was in vogue in the days of President Jackson.
The Brains of Tammany.
As has already been stated, Puck was not founded until 1877, too late to take part in the Tilden-Hayes campaign. When we speak of Puck, however, we refer, of course, to the edition printed in English, for, as a matter of fact, twenty-four numbers of a German Puck were published during the year 1876.